The Return Pt 3
by IzzieStar
Summary: Two years after the rescue of Elizabeth Weir from the Asurans, John Sheppard finds himself returning to Earth and alone in the world. As he struggles to adapt to life away from Atlantis, he looks for comfort in a fellow-expedition member who is determined to move forward, and away, with their life.
1. Prologue

In the moment they'd rescued her, he'd known. He knew that the scenario he'd managed to convince himself of, where Elizabeth would be reinstated at the leader of Atlantis and left in peace, was never a realistic expectation, but he'd allowed himself to hope. Worst of all, he'd persuaded her to hope too.

So little had been said when she walked back through that gate to be immediately rushed into an isolation chamber where a series of medical examinations were performed to ensure she wasn't a threat to either Atlantis or the inhabitants of it. He knew that the discussions were ongoing with the IOA and SGC, but he had purposefully been shut out of these discussions while Elizabeth was poked and prodded at like some lab rat. Hoping to gain any semblance of information, he had cornered Sam and casually asked how discussions were going, and while she said very little, her eyes said very much and that 'very much' wasn't good news.

As a man of the military, of action, he'd been frustrated to the point of rage, finding himself snapping at both his team and his superiors as he found himself increasingly helpless. Eventually, even though Elizabeth had cleared her medical, he stopped visiting her knowing that he could only kill off a little more hope with each visit. The hope was finally killed off when Richard Woolsey quietly took him to one side and informed him of the decision reached by him and his colleagues, offering that John should be the one to tell Elizabeth himself. Although Woolsey spun it as being the kindest solution, John knew that it was cowardice really and part of him wanted to watch them squirm as they were forced to do the deed themselves. A big part knew it had to be him though.

When he told her, she didn't cry, or shout, or even show any indication of disappointment. Instead, she just nodded politely before packing her few belongings into a bag ready for the journey ahead of her. Her calmness unnerved him, and all the things he wanted to say were momentarily lost in his confusion. He'd never been a man of words, and the words he'd been rehearsing had decided to leave him when he was most depending on them. Saying nothing herself, Elizabeth had turned to him and squeezed his arm gently before turn her back on him and walking away to the fate that waited.


	2. Chapter One

Mrs Elizabeth Wallace sipped from her glass of wine as she read the message before her. Another night with the television it seemed. She couldn't complain. Well, she could, but it wouldn't have been fair on Simon if she did. The hours had always been part of the deal with Simon and, deep down, that was part of the reason why she loved him. Becoming a clinical director had been a dream fulfilled for Simon, and Elizabeth was prouder of him that she could ever express. It just so happened that with great power came...even greater hours, and right now he was preparing to perform life-saving surgery, an hour after he was due home. That person needed him far more than she did now, and she could never begrudge that.

Just having him in her life, three years after he revealed he'd met somebody else, was more than she could ever wish for. She'd returned to Earth broken, pushed out of the career she had worked so hard for and subject to a lifetime of extensive medical tests to ensure that she posed no threat to Earth, and Simon had been the one to put her back together. Their reunion had come about by accident, as they met in the park where they had so often walked together in the early days of their romance and sat and discussed where each of their lives had gone wrong. Simon was the first person she was honest with. Even her own mother didn't know that her daughter was being sustained by microscopic robots, but with Simon, she'd felt she could finally be honest. And the best bit? He was the first person who hadn't judged her, who hadn't looked at her with that vague sense of fear. From there they had found their way back to where they used to be, perhaps with a little less passion, but the old comfort was still there. It made sense. It had given her a purpose when she was so lost in the world.

Tonight though, she was fending for herself and settled down on the sofa, hoping to find anything on the television that could occupy her concentration. It was a Thursday night though, and despite the numerous channels, nothing took her fancy. Stretching out to a lying position, Elizabeth rested her wine glass on her stomach, taking her hand away and watching it teeter before catching it as it threatened to teeter an inch too far and spill. Letting it go once more, Elizabeth jumped at the sound of the door bell and placed the wine on the coffee table as she headed towards the front door. Elizabeth opened the door to be presented with a face she hadn't expected to ever see again.

'John.'


	3. Chapter Two

'Hey I, err, was in the neighbourhood and thought I'd say hi,' he said, looking into the room behind her.

Just from his demeanour, she could have hazarded a guess that he was more than a little drunk. With the scent of scotch rolling off him, she could say it with certainty. Even after all this time, she knew that wasn't John, to turn to alcohol even when the going got incredibly tough, and she instinctively wanted to reach out to him and make it better. She didn't now how to though. Not anymore.

'You'd better come in,' she suggested.

Despite his efforts to hide it, Elizabeth noticed the slight stagger in his step as he guided his way to the sofa and slumped onto it. There, he ran his hands through his even messier than usual hair and looked at her warily. Swallowing slightly, Elizabeth smiled and perched on the coffee table before him, waiting for whatever it was he needed to say. Whatever it was though, she had a feeling his role on Atlantis had come to an end. She recognised the symptoms.

'What are you doing here John?'

'I just wanted to come by, say hi.'

'And why are you really here?' She asked patiently.

'Because I don't have anywhere else to go,' he admitted.

'I'm sure that's not true, John. Look, why don't I get us a coffee?'

'You have anything stronger?' He asked, eyeing the wine glass beside her.

'No,' she said, simply.

In reality, Simon had a very well-stocked liqueur cabinet, but given that John was already considerably drunk, she wasn't going to help him descend into inebriation. And it occurred to her that coffee was her best chance of sobering him up and getting any inkling of sense from him. Not that she was entirely sure that she wanted sense from him. John, everything to do with Atlantis, had been left behind and she'd been doing a good job of shutting that memory out. That memory was pouring back though as she looked at a man who had never conceded defeat before, but seemingly had now.

The sound of the coffee trickling into the mugs presented a welcome break from the silence that existed, and she lifted the two mugs, the heat scorching her hands slightly. Simon so rarely had the time to just sit and drink coffee these days, that it occurred to Elizabeth that this must be the first time she'd found herself with two mugs in her hands since Christmas. These days, Simon preferred to drink herbal tea anyway, and every morning she'd wake to have to fish a stray tea bag out of the sink and dispose of it appropriately. Resuming her position on the coffee table, she passed John his mug which he took a swig from prompting a grimace from him.

'You need to invest in better coffee,' he commented.

'I'll keep that in mind,' Elizabeth said, taking a mouthful from her own mug.

'I've been relieved of my position.'

'I'm sorry John,' Elizabeth said weakly.

'Everyone has. The IOA ruled that Atlantis should be used as a research base.'

'That's absurd. What about the Wraith?'

'The Wraith isn't really a pressing worry now that Atlantis is back on Earth.'

'Atlantis is here?'

'Yeah, the Wraith finally found a way to get to Earth. Atlantis was the only way we could prevent that from happening.'

Another uncomfortable silence filled the air as Elizabeth processed the information. It made sense really; Atlantis being in the Pegasus Galaxy had been a necessary evil for both the SGC and the IOA. Now it was back on Earth, they could optimise for their own means, whatever they were. Elizabeth had a feeling that 'research' was an IOA cover term to appease the SGC, who would no-doubt have their own interests in its potential.

'Surely the SGC have found another role for you?' Elizabeth said, coming round from her thoughts.

'Oh yeah, they've got me a great little role playing, leading a back-up team, should any of the actual SG-teams need support,' John commented, bitterly.

It was a waste of his talents, Elizabeth knew that. What was bothering John though was that his whole life had been dismantled. To go from living as part of a working family of sorts, being on the front-line everyday, to...real life, was a shock to the system. It was just a case of losing your purpose, it was a case of losing _everything_ you had adapted to. Looking at the slumped man before her, Elizabeth was reminded of watching the film _The Shawshank Redemption _on her return to Earth, and the character Brooks Halen, who had so struggled to adjust to life outside of prison that he ended up taking his own life. While Atlantis certainly wasn't comparable to the life of an inmate, the metaphor for adjusting had stayed with her since she had been unceremoniously dumped by the IOA and their affiliates.

'It must be hard for you,' Elizabeth said quietly.

'Teyla and Ronon were returned back to Pegasus, McKay's working in Washington, took Zelenka with him,' John continued rambling, as if he hadn't heard her.

'You're still in touch though?' Elizabeth asked.

'You know what gets me? That we put our lives on the line over and over to protect their sorry asses and we get back here and all that is just forgotten about. We could add serious value to that research team.'

'You and I both know the IOA doesn't care about that sort of thing. What matters to them is that they're ultimately in control.'

'I guess you know that better than anybody, right?' John asked, looking at her properly for the first time.

'Right,' Elizabeth said, offering no more.

Laying down his coffee mug beside her, John's attention was taken by the ring on her left hand for the first time, his realisation visible on his face. After a moment, he looked up into her eyes and she found herself averting his gaze, and uncomfortably wrapping her offending hand around her coffee mug, shifting slightly away from him.

'You're married?' John asked.

'Yes,' Elizabeth said.

'To who?'

'Simon Wallace. We were together before I joined the Atlantis mission.'

'You never said.'

'Well in the middle of fighting off the Wraith, it didn't really seem that important,' Elizabeth said with an awkward laugh.

'So you were in a relationship all that time?'

'No. It was complicated,' Elizabeth said weakly.

'It must have been a relief to get back,' John said, a hint of annoyance in his tone.

Elizabeth looked at him sharply, and shook her head. While Elizabeth was trying to support John through what he was going through, his lack of sensitivity was beginning to jar slightly. The only hint of interest that he had shown in the way she had rebuilt her life since returning to life had equated to an angry, accusatory tone that implied she had, in some-way, deceived him and let him down.

'I'm sorry,' John said, as if reading her thoughts.

'John, I know how hard it is returning to Earth after everything that we went through in Atlantis, but you will adjust.'

'Like you did.'

'Like I did. I'm not saying that life will ever be as exciting, dangerous even, as it was on Atlantis, but we all knew that it couldn't go on forever. You're still young and you have the opportunity to start over, live a whole new adventure.'

'And what did you choose as your adventure, Doctor?'

Hearing herself being referred to by her title for the first since she had began her new 'adventure' made her realise how little it compared to the adventure that preceded it and it hit her with a pang of longing. Quickly, she rearranged her features into a smile because knowing that wasn't what John needed right now. Even if the circumstances were different, she wasn't so sure she'd have let on the truth either.

'Love...living. After everything that happened, a change of pace was exactly what I needed.'

'I don't think living the domestic life is quite what I was cut out for.'

'You've never seen yourself with a wife, a few kids?' Elizabeth challenged with a smile.

'I did the whole wife thing, and it was a slow-motion car crash.'

'I'm not the only one with a few skeletons in the closet, it seems,' Elizabeth said, raising an eyebrow slightly.

Ignoring her comment, John continued, 'I never had you down as marriage type either.'

'Well, people can surprise you John.'

'Are you happy?'

Momentarily, she hesitated, before settling on, 'Of course.'

'As happy as you were on Atlantis?' He asked huskily.

Before Elizabeth could formulate the appropriate lie as a response, she saw John coming towards her, wobbling slightly as he came and although she knew it was coming, she was too stunned to move. His lips touched hers, and she remained paralysed in the shock of the moment, taking in the soft warmth that she was never supposed to feel. It was the taste of scotch, filtering through the coffee, that roused her and pushed him away, him falling back into the sofa with a force disproportionate to her push.

'John, whatever you're looking for, you're not going to find it here,' She said firmly.

'Because you're living such a great adventure, right?' He said with a sneer.

'I have a life and I'm happy. Now I am sorry that you're not getting what you want out of life at the moment, but trying to disrupt what I have isn't the solution,' Elizabeth said, her tone raising slightly.

'I came here because I thought you'd understand,' John said, his tone matching hers.

'And where were you when I was going through this, John? What did you expect? That I'd unconditionally be here for you, forgetting all the time you were in Atlantis without giving me a second thought?' Elizabeth demanded.

'Exactly like you did with Simon?' John challenged.

'Get out,' Elizabeth said, standing up and pointing to the door, barely able to keep the shaking in her hand under control.

'I was already leaving,' John snapped back.

With a defiant slam of the door, he was gone.


	4. Chapter Three

When John awoke the next morning, with a raging hangover, he didn't initially remember. His back aching from the slumped sleeping position he'd laid in, he'd tentatively walked to the shower, and stepped in hoping the steaming hot water would ease him up a bit. It did a lot more that. The shock of the scorching water against his skin brought him to his senses, and brought back the cloudy memories of the previous night. As he started to put those memories together, he began to wish they hadn't come back at all, faced with the shame of his behaviour the night before.

When he'd found Elizabeth's address, he hadn't even intended to visit her; he's just wanted to know that she was out there and getting on with her life. The alcohol had dimmed that resolve though, and as he looked at the empty Scotch bottle that had smashed into shards on the floor, he had another regret playing on his mind. Alcohol had never been the solution for John, even at his lowest moments, but in one moment he'd persuaded to lose himself for one night. Unfortunately, his drunken mind had decided to lose itself at Elizabeth Weir's home.

If he tried to persuade himself that he hadn't meant any of it, it would be a lie. In the moment where he'd tried to kiss her, he'd been looking for comfort, for meaningless sex that would both take it all away and make it real again. To do so, had been a massive act of disrespect to her, him and everything that they had been through together. Any hope of tentatively working their way back to a friendship was already dimmed by the obvious anger that Elizabeth felt towards him, and he knew he deserved it. Although Elizabeth had only alluded to her experiences with the Asurans, he knew enough to know that she had been treated in the most appalling terms that had seen her tortured and return to Atlantis broken. The calm, confident authority had been replaced by a woman resigned to misery and mistreatment, and he'd offered nothing to remedy that. He'd acted on his promise to rescue her, but after what she'd been through, that could never be enough and he'd fallen short. That shamed him more than his drunken actions of the previous night.

Attempting to try and rectify his first mistake of the night, he picked up the shards of glass and dropped them into a garbage bag, the finality of the crunch of glass hitting the bottom of the bin satisfied him. Although the evidence was gone, the headache continued to be a reminder and he knocked back two aspirin with a glass of water and two slices of toast. The one thing his brother had passed on in their youth, that was of any use, was getting over a hangover. As the pain in his head gradually began to subside, he was left with just one mistake to rectify. Well, several, but they were all grouped together and they weren't going to be solved quite to simply.


	5. Chapter Four

Despite the early hour at which Simon walked into the kitchen to make his morning herbal tea, Elizabeth was already sat at the breakfast bar, staring into the empty living room with a full mug of coffee that had gone cold in front of her. Gently he dipped his head and kissed her shoulder, rousing her from her thoughts. Swivelling on her chair, she faced him and brushed a speck of fluff off his robe.

'You're up early,' He commented.

'I couldn't sleep,' Elizabeth admitted.

'Are you worrying about anything?' Simon asked softly.

'No,' Elizabeth said resolutely, 'the sun was streaming through the curtains again. We need new ones.'

'I am more than happy to leave that in your capable hands.'

Elizabeth smiled slightly before turning back to stare at the living room before he. Last night, when he'd returned and she was still awake, and she'd had the option to tell him what had happened, but she had chosen not to. Since they'd been back together, Elizabeth had determinedly put Atlantis out of her mind and replaced those thoughts with a commitment to making this relationship work, and the prospect of letting the two meet wasn't welcome. Simply put, she didn't want to admit to Simon what had happened the previous night because it would mean letting those thoughts and regrets back into her life and that couldn't be an option. Yet it was becoming a reality. Although she was angry at John for what had occurred, she was also worried and she couldn't shake it off that anxiety at the state he was in when had behaved in that way. He wasn't himself, that much was obvious, and despite it not being her responsibility to look out for him, the knowledge that there wasn't anybody else outweighed the resolve she'd had the previous night to forget that their meeting had ever happened.

'I need to go and get showered if I'm curtain shopping today,' Elizabeth said, standing up for her seated position.

At a slightly quicker than normal pace, Elizabeth walked to the bathroom, locking the door behind her when she arrived. Pausing for a moment to listen and ensure that Simon was still downstairs, Elizabeth pulled her cell phone from her pocket and scrolled through her contacts, stopping at a number she had never used and pressing 'call'.

'Jack, it's Elizabeth Wallace. I need a favour,' Elizabeth said nervously.

**A/N: Thank you for all the lovely reviews. I really do appreciate them! I will look at continuing with my other fic - 'life' got in the way, and I've lost where I was going with it, so I'll have to have a good think about where it could go.**


	6. Chapter Five

When John saw Elizabeth get out of the car that had pulled up in front of his house, he considered not answering the door. He quickly changed his mind though. After his behaviour the previous night, he was both grateful and surprised that she'd managed to seek him out. Instinctively, he checked his appearance in the mirror by the front door. Rough was being generous, but it would have to do.

Before Elizabeth could even knock, John opened the door to let her into his home. It was new territory for both of them – building some form of contact in the 'real world', and John watched as Elizabeth took in the simple décor of his home, noting the half smile as her eyes fell on his Johnny Cash poster.

'Some things never change,' she commented.

'I owe you an apology,' John said, cutting to the chase, 'I was out of order last night, and you shouldn't have had to deal with that.'

'No,' Elizabeth agreed.

With more confidence than John suspected she was feeling, Elizabeth stepped into the living room and sat down on one of the sofas that John had chosen simply to fill up that space. Interior design didn't come naturally to him, and upgrading to whole house from a single room had been a stretch of his limited decorating abilities. He felt strangely exposed to have Elizabeth observe that.

'You know, I lied to Simon to come here. I told him that I was shopping for curtains,' Elizabeth said as she sat down on his sofa.

Hearing this finally set him at ease. A little anyway. It was a reminder that Elizabeth was trying to move on with her life too, and it wasn't quite as easy as her beautiful home and calm manner would lead you to believe. He sat down on the free sofa, still keeping a careful distance between them.

'I guess he wouldn't be too pleased that you've come to visit a guy who made a pass at you last night,' John observed.

'I didn't tell him about that either,' Elizabeth admitted.

'Well, every marriage has its secrets,' John offered.

'I'm not sure I want to know what yours were,' Elizabeth said eyeing him.

'I'm not sure that you would either.'

He knew what she was thinking and he made the very deliberate decision to neither ask or offer more information.

'How did you get my address?'

'I could ask you the same thing Colonel,' Elizabeth said, with a raise of the eyebrow, 'I still have _some _friends in high places.'

'I did a record search at the SGC for yours. I guess I just wanted to know that you were okay,' John admitted.

'And I am, but I also wanted to check that you're okay,' Elizabeth said, with a smile.

'Apart from a slight hangover, I'm better. Much better.'

'Good,' Elizabeth said, standing up.

The finality startled him, but he knew better than to let on. There was so much more that he felt he needed to say. Apologising for last night's action was barely scratching the surface of the series of actions that he'd taken to let her down since her return to Atlantis. With the awkwardness of everything had happened in the past two years, he didn't feel like he could do what needed to be said justice and decided to let it go. Taking the lead, he opened the front door to let her out of his home and, very probably, out of his life. That was something he'd grown to live with though. As she came to the door, she paused and turned to him, just inches between their bodies and lifted her arm. Taking his eyes from hers, he looked down and saw her holding out a card with her number on it.

'For if you're ever not okay.'


	7. Chapter Six

What John Sheppard lacked in interior design, Elizabeth had in buckets. Without a job to occupy her attentions, renovating the home she shared with Simon had become her passion, and to find her not covered in paint or plaster in the six months after they purchased the house was a rarity. She had relentlessly poured over paint charts and rummaged through thrift shops looking for the perfect combination to make their home their own, unique and distinct. The curtains in the bedroom had never been right though. It was the last room that Elizabeth had come to renovate, and after settling on a soft jade green palette, and rustic silver materials, she had chosen a set of voile curtains, with a delicate silver stitching. Satisfied that her project was complete, she had climbed into bed, sleepy but happy, only to be woken up just after 5am by the sun streaming into their bedroom. Beside her, Simon had continued sleeping peacefully, but as hard as she tried, Elizabeth couldn't block that sunlight out and doze back off to sleep. Throughout winter, it was less of a problem. Summer was approaching though and her impromptu alarm was back, with a relentless persistence that left her yawning throughout the day, so as much as she loved her finished touch, it was time to say goodbye.

Most importantly though, it was a distraction. Both her efforts to close the door on what had happened on the previous night had gone awry, and focussing on a new project was precisely what she need to remind her of what was real and to take her mind off the image of John that had imprinted itself on her mind. Stopped at the traffic lights, she checked her phone and sighed. It had only been twenty-five minutes and she didn't really expect him to get in contact anyway. Small talk was a stretch with John at time, and the old familiarity that they'd shared whilst working together had been replaced by a tension, filled with all the regrets they both had. It wasn't worth worrying about, Elizabeth reassured herself, decisively dropping her phone on the seat beside her.

Her first stop was Bed, Bath and Beyond. Although the current pair of curtains had come from an independent store, she knew she could rely on Bed, Bath and Beyond to do the job of blocking the light out until her body was sufficiently rested enough. The choice was vast, as she had known it would be, but nothing quite caught her fancy. Although they were proving to be an irritation, the original curtains had fitted. Perfectly. From the moment they caught her eye, she just knew they'd work in the room she'd become so invested in, and she almost felt guilty for replacing them. Half-heartedly, she reached out and picked up a set of jade curtains and studied the label. The colour would match with the existing fabrics, she knew that, she just couldn't get excited about the bland material and cut of it. They'd do though.

As she came to the checkout, she reached into her purse to pay and knocked her phone out of it onto the floor. It lit up with a message from an unknown number, and she reached out to pick it up, a feeling of trepidation rising inside her. Suddenly oblivious to the queue forming behind her, she opened the message and sighed as the read the message before her: 'I'm sorry for letting you down.'

'Can I take a payment from you?' The store assistant asked, barely concealing her irritation.

Elizabeth eyed the curtains on the counter and said, with honesty, 'I don't know.'


	8. Chapter Seven

Although he wasn't exactly sure what he expected in reply to his message, he'd expected _something_. Eight hours later though, and his phone hadn't lit up once. No phone calls, no messages. It was starting to become a familiar pattern. Today though, he had assumed that Elizabeth would have something to say in response to admission. Not that he was entirely sure he deserved that; he simply couldn't imagine Elizabeth letting something hang like that. For not the first time that day, he thought back to the moment he'd decided to drop in on her last night, and regretted it.

Suddenly sick of the four walls of his own home, he grabbed some cash from the kitchen counter and shoved it into his pocket. He didn't really care where he was going, he just wanted to be going somewhere away from the monotony. He drove through town, watching people laughing and smiling and wondered why it was so freaking hard to have that. With his team dismantled and spread across two galaxies, he was struggling to find a purpose these days – a reason to get up in the mornings. Sure, he had his new team and occasionally they'd get together for a beer after a shift, or to watch a game, but it wasn't the same. Life for them was as it ever was. For him, it was so far removed from what he had grown accustomed to, and he was starting to lose his will to keep going through the motions.

After about an hour of driving aimlessly around, trapped with his own thoughts, John pulled into a parking lot across from a bar and locked the car behind him. At this hour, the bar was one of the few places open and any change of scenery was welcome. He came to the door, and paused to hold it open for a woman who smiled gratefully at him and stepped into the bar, and he followed behind.

On his various journeys in and around town, he'd passed the bar frequently, but never found the urge to go in. More of the lights adorning the front of the building were broken that working, and the whole exterior had the feeling that it was slowly crumbling at the hands of neglect. Fitting, John thought to himself with a half smile. The inside, it seemed was suffering a similar fate. The cheap material covering the bar stools was both faded and torn; the point by which it needed replacing had already passed and they had simply been left to fill their role until the point where they would fall apart. The lighting was dim, with a red glow, and John couldn't decide whether that was a purposeful effort to cover the shabby appearance of the bar, or a simple economic decision. Maybe both.

He slid into one of the well-worn chairs at the bar and laid his phone out in front of him. Still nothing. A barman who had the appearance of a person who would rather be anywhere other than here, walked over to John, clutching a bar towel. He couldn't have been much over the age of twenty.

'What can I get you, sir?' He asked.

'Vodka. No ice.'

The barman took a glass and rubbed it with his towel, adding more smears to the already scratched and murky appearance of it, dropped a shot of vodka into the glass and placed it down on the side where John picked the glass up and took the mouthful in one. He pushed the glass back to the barmen, and rooted out a scrunched fifty-dollar bill from his pocket which he passed to the barmen with a smile.

'Keep 'em coming,' He said.

If the barmen was shocked at his request, he didn't let on, and simply filled the glass once more and placed it in front of John without meeting his eye before walking away from him to serve another customer. Given the quality of the bar and the cheap cost of the liqueur, John had not doubt that the bartender had grown accustomed to strangers walking in and draining the contents from an array of bottles before stumbling out at closing time. Another one wouldn't make a difference to his life.

Slowly, the alcohol was beginning to both warm him and dim his senses and he smiled to himself with satisfaction as he took in his surroundings. Here, he was one of many and there was no judgement. Across the bar, he caught the eye of the woman who'd entered at the same time as he had and she held his gaze briefly before turning her head and smiling to herself. In front of her was a view that mirrored his own; an empty glass with just a thin layer of transparent liquid resting at the bottom.

'Another drink for the lady,' John said smoothly to the barmen.

Without a change of expression, the barmen took the two glasses and tipped a shot from the depleting vodka bottle into each of their glasses, returning them without a word. The woman looked over to John and raised her glass slightly with a knowing smile.

'Thanks,' She said in a drawl.

'No problem.'

'Do I get a name with my drink?' She asked.

'Captain James T. Kirk.' John said, smiling to himself.

After a second, the woman laughed and stood up from her seated position and walked along the bar to take the seat beside John. She offered her hand out to him and he took it, seeing her properly for the first time.

'Lieutenant Uhura,' She said, with a giggle.

'It's nice to meet you Uhura.'

Both laughing slightly at the inside joke, they paused and looked at each other again, aware of the inevitability of their meeting. As well as being younger than him, she was attractive, with long tresses of wavy blonde hair, round blue eyes and a mouth that naturally settled into a pout. The make up she'd heavily applied undermined her natural beauty somehow, but that was besides the point, and as John drank his third vodka of the night, his vision became slightly blurred and unfocussed and he could only see the attraction.

'So what do you James T. Kirk?'

'I suppose this where I should give you a smooth line about travelling through different galaxies and fighting off alien enemies? I wouldn't be lying,' John said, downing the vodka that had appeared in front of him.

Laughing at his apparent joke, the woman leaned closer to him, 'It must get terribly lonely.'

'Like you couldn't imagine,' He said softly.

As Uhura leaned closer to him once more, he found himself leaning into her himself and their lips met in an ugly clash of teeth and tongues. This was never supposed to be a romantic meeting though, and neither of them made any effort to correct their messy technique, instead reaching out to one another, their hands finding their ways to each others' bodies, not caring about their surroundings. From below his navel, John felt her right hand slip into his trousers and he momentarily opened his eyes to see the barmen staring at them blankly. Par for the course in his job, John was sure.

Taking his lips away from hers, he reached for her hand and muttered, 'Let's go back to mine'.

**A/N: Always good to have...****_constructive _****criticism. The point of the story is that John (and Elizabeth to an extent) is at his lowest ebb, reminiscent of the alternative Sheppard in 'Vegas'. The quote that stuck in my mind while coming up with the story: 'It's amazing how one incident can entirely alter the course of your life. Still, I like to believe you have the same strength of character.' **


	9. Chapter Eight

Across town, Elizabeth was still awake and sat up in bed, listening to Simon snore beside her. Normally, she could sleep through it, but tonight it was just one of many things conspiring to keep her awake. That text had got to her, snaked into her thoughts without any intention of letting up. In reality, she didn't know that there was anything that John could done to change her situation when the IOA had sent her back to Earth and cut her ties with the Stargate programme. More than that, with Atlantis facing so many other threats, he had more pressing concerns as the military leader of Atlantis. Yet, the lack of contact and the way they had both conducted their goodbye had bothered her. Deep down, she'd needed reassurances and had hoped that John would give her them. Her time with the Asurans had damaged her, and while he was there for her physically, neither of them quite prepared to broach what she had been through.

It was too late now. Although the memories were still there, she had moved on, forced herself to be strong again. Making up for lost time wasn't really an option because she wasn't prepared to relive it. She wasn't even sure that John wanted that; what he needed was to find a purpose and she wasn't sure that she was equipped to help him find one. Their circumstances were different, and cut off from the only world she had even known, she'd made the conscious decision to be a housewife and focus on philanthropy, helping out at various local charities. Just over twenty-four hours ago, John had asked her a question that didn't really need an answer because he already knew. Are you as happy as you were on Atlantis? No. No, she wasn't. It seemed almost masochistic that Elizabeth was at her happiest when she knew that death was a very real possibility every day of her existing there. They were making a difference though, they were contributing to mankind, and that feeling far outweighed every worry that Elizabeth had.

That wasn't to say she wasn't happy now; she was very content with the life fate had dealt her and she would be eternally grateful that she had been given her second chance as it were. It was just that John walking back into her life was a reminder that proving stubborn. She wanted to help him – she realised that now. From the moment she'd seen him again, her first instinct had been to help him get through whatever was troubling him and that feeling had persevered, even if it had been blurred by anger and indignation. Helping him wasn't the big issue though, it was _how _to. The best place to start was to reply to his text, and she picked up her phone and typed a reply before pulling the covers up and allowing her eyes to fall on the curtains before she closed her eyes.

**A/N: The next chapter will see John and Elizabeth start to rebuild their friendship and, hopefully, be a little longer! Thanks for the reviews again.**


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